Director of Learning

I began my career at Passmores in January 2002 as a history teacher and a form tutor. Over the years I found myself teaching additional subjects such as Citizenship and Humanities and I began take a vested interest in the Pastoral side of school life. I became Assistant Head of Lower School and then moved on to Head of Lower School. In 2007, as the school moved to the house system, my job title then changed to Director of Learning.

As a Director of Learning I oversee all four houses. I meet with the Heads of House weekly and we work as a team to ensure that the students are gaining the most from school both in and out of lessons. Collectively we deal with a variety of areas of school life including behaviour issues, challenging family circumstances and bullying. However I am pleased to say that my job is not all dealing with situations that present challenges for our young people. I am also in the fortunate position to be able to reward the students who just get it right all the time. Every term I run a “Head Teacher’s Challenge” reward trip. Students who pass this challenge are those that have outstanding attendance, excellent uniform, correct equipment and absolutely no after school detentions. It gives me great pleasure to inform these students that they are invited Christmas shopping at Lakeside or ice skating or to Thorpe Park.

Academically I am responsible for the managing the Key Stage 3 banding review. At the end of every half term I meet with the Heads of Faculty, Mr King (Assistant Principal) and the SENCO and we review the current levels of all Key Stage 3 students with a view to moving them up or down a band if they present as being in the wrong set. One of my favourite areas of my job is to facilitate the primary transition work throughout the summer term. I visit all of our feeder primary schools and spend time with the Year 6 teachers in a bid to build up the most informative profile on each student as possible before they join us in September. I also organise interviews and a taster day for the Year 6 students and their parents or carers in order to make the move from Primary to Secondary school as smooth as possible.

I absolutely thrive on the amount of interaction I get with the students on a daily basis which is why I choose to squeeze as much as possible into my school life. This includes spending four days at East Mersea Outdoor Pursuits Centre with the Year 7s every June and eight days of my summer with our new Year 7s every July during summer school.

So as you can see, my role as a history teacher and a Director of Learning is extremely busy but I wouldn’t want it any other way!